She's got that look in her eyes: hungry and excited, mischievous, just a little bewildered. While I still delight in that expression, now it also fills me with a peculiar dismay. It means that somewhere within her, the unquenchable fire has been relit. As always, it will burn until no fuel remains, until she is spent and exhausted and sick of herself.

It's close to noon on a Tuesday, and I'm wondering whether or not I'll be getting out of bed today. It is as yet an uncertainty, even to me; but so far the smart money is on "˜no'. The argument can be made that, as it is almost noon, I have essentially missed half of what this particular Tuesday had to offer.

Something is missing. To be honest, I didn't even notice it until recently, but now that I have, its absence has weighed on my thoughts. There is a narrative void in our medium. Games have thus far ignored a particularly revered dramatic template; a template which Western society holds in quite possibly the highest regard.

In the Sumba Islands, there is a particular tribe of Indonesians, who weave a particular type of traditional cloth, called ikat. These are intricate, elaborately patterned tapestries, the most complex of which are handed down as heirlooms for generations. The process to create them is a convoluted one, in that it involves more than one person.

I stare at the screen. 50 hours? Have I really put two entire days into this game? I did not notice that they'd gone--there was no chime to mark each hours passage from my life into a world that exists only in code--but they most certainly are. If I concentrate I can almost feel the void they filled, a bizarre phantom pain.